Friends Meeting House, Millville Pa

 

The Friends Meeting House in Millville is located at 351 East Main Street, Millville, Columbia County PA. The Muncy Meeting of the Friends was established in 1799 and alternate sessions were held at Millville. The name was changed in 1856 to the Fishing Creek Monthly meeting and each June a session was held In Catawissa.  Later the name was changed to the Millville Meeting.

The original log Meeting House and the ground on which the meeting house is located was leased to the meeting by John Eves who provided that the rental should be one peppercorn annually. 

"On the eighth month, twenty eighth day, 1794, John Eves signed an indenture between himself and John Kester, Thomas Eves, Paul Kester, and Jesse Haines, whom he made trustees, for two acred of land for the meeting house for 999 years, next ensuing.  The consideration was to be "yearly rental of one peppercorn on the 28th day of the 8th month in the respective year should the same be lawfully demanded."

In legal terms, a peppercorn is a metaphor for a very small cash payment or other nominal consideration, used to satisfy the requirements for the creation of a legal contract. Read more about "Peppercorn Rent", which does still exist today, here:

https://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/peppercorn-rent

 In 1847, the original log structure was replaced by a new brick building.

The original construction included two rooms, one for worship services, and one room used as a school.

Inside the meeting house at Millville, Pa

"Parties of Indians from Wyoming traversed the trail on visits to their dusky brothers at points farther west, passing and repassing the solitary farm, and bringing its occupants into constant contact with every phase of savage character. The opportunity to receive them with uniform courtesy and kindness was well improved. The presence of the family on an exposed frontier at a time when others found safety only in flight, and the refusal of John Eves, with others of the society of Friends, to take up arms when the war of the revolution began, caused the provincial authorities to suspect him of being a tory. Spies were sent to inquire into the matter, but the charge could not be substantiated. It was not sympathy with the British, but exceptional wisdom and kindness that secured for them an immunity from the ravages of the border warfare." - Battles History of Columbia and Montour Counties, 1887

The Bloomsburg Press Enterprise, 1937

Held Services— For 150 Years Record ' of Millville Friends Unbroken for More Than Century and ii Half ...

 "John Eves the founder of Millville who died in 1802 Is burled there and the fact that this grave is in the first row of graves in the cemetery closest to the meeting house is an indication that his death was one of the first to occur in the settlement The graves of several Indlans who lived with members of the Society of Friends in the early days also are Included in the Friends' cemetery. The friendship that sprang up between the Indians and peace-loving followers of William Penn continued through the years and even during the past 35 years an Indian made his home with one of the members of the sect near Millville" 

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Historic American Buildings Survey

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On June 3 1936, the building was surveyed as part of the Works Project Administration's Historic American Buildings Survey project.  The drawings below are from that survey.

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Morning Press, 1972